The Swabian and Franconian is lively, loquacious, genial; and the Rheinlander is so in a still higher degree; but among the former I think there will be found more true-heartedness, inoffensiveness, and simplicity of manners, especially with the female sex, where it borders on _naïveté_. This good-nature which, as it were, surrenders itself, while others are lying in wait, and is hence easily over-reached, or leaves others the advantage, very naturally gave rise to the false proverb:--"The Swabian does not come to the years of discretion till forty." Swabians, Franconians, and Rheinlanders are our true sanguineans; and the last altogether our German-French, who dance through life like their Rhine-gnats. The Bavarian is straight-forward, frank but dry, blunt, and he has hitherto been ruder, more ignorant, more fond of quarrel and drinking, more given up to superstition and old things than others; for his land was the home of priestcraft and monkery. You may ever distinguish the national Bavarian by his nervous squat body, small round head, and beer-belly, immediately beneath which the trousers begin; hence the braces or belt is indispensible. The showy belt, is, as in the Tyrol, matter of national pomp, so with the girls the boddice; and both are as little known in the north as the platted hair of the maidens--perhaps relics of the knight's girdle, bandalier, and breastplate; for noble knighthood flourished chiefly in the south. * * * * * SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY. * * * * * GEOGRAPHICAL. _The Niger_.